Republican presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) repeated that she is "not a politician" as she campaigned through Iowa Monday.
"I am not a politician. I am a real person. I don't even know how to be a politician," she said outside a high school in Grundy Center, Iowa, according to CNN.
Bachmann is in her third term in the U.S. House of Representatives and served in the Minnesota state Senate from 2001 to 2007.
She added, "That is why I am in trouble all the time in Washington, D.C., because I am constantly fighting the establishment in Washington, D.C." She repeated the "not a politician" line at another campaign stop, writing it on a cafe wall.
She also attacked her rival, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), for his position on Iran. Paul is tied for first place in the polls in Iowa with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, while Bachmann trails them, polling behind former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
"Together with the Chinese, the North Koreans are actively working to help the Iranians to obtain missile technology to obtain a nuclear weapon," she said Monday, according to ABC News. "This cannot be. It is why Ron Paul would be a dangerous president of the U.S., he would have our nation ignore clear unmistakable warning signs of another brutal dictator who would want to wipe Israel and the us off the face of the map."
The Huffington Post's Jon Ward reported that Paul's argument that the U.S. should not use military force to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear bomb may hurt him in Iowa. Bachmann and Paul had a recent exchange over the issue:
"We have an IAEA report that just recently came out that said, literally, Iran is within just months of being able to obtain that weapon," Bachmann said.
Paul shot back: "There is no U.N. report that said that. It's totally wrong on what you just said."
Paul was partially correct. The IAEA report did not say that Iran is "just months" away from obtaining a bomb, though the L.A. Times reported the day before the report was released that U.N. inspectors believe that Iran would need only about six months to enrich enough uranium to have a nuclear weapon.